Monthly trend employment in Australia decreased in October 2016, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.

In October 2016, trend employment decreased by 1,000 persons to 11,946,600 persons, the first decrease in the trend series since November 2013. This slight fall in trend employment reflected an increase in part-time employment of 8,400 persons being more than offset by a decrease in full-time employment of 9,500 persons.

“Since December 2015 we have seen a continued decline in trend full-time employment and an increase in part-time employment, with a corresponding increase in the share of hours worked by part-time workers. This shift to part-time employment has been more pronounced for males compared to females.” Program Manager of ABS’ Labour and Income Branch, Jacqui Jones said.

“Over the past year, part-time employment has increased from around 31 % of employment to 32 %. That’s a relatively large shift, if you consider that it was around 29 % 10 years ago.”

“Since December 2015, there are now around 132,700 more persons working part-time, compared with a 69,900 decrease in those working full-time.” Ms. Jones said.

Trend monthly hours worked increased by 3.2 Million hours (0.2 %), with increases in total hours worked by both full-time and part-time workers.

Trend unemployment rate remained steady at 5.6 %. The participation rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 64.5 %. Participation has decreased by 0.6 percentage points over the past year.

Trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market.

Seasonally adjusted number of persons employed increased by 9,800 in October 2016. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for October 2016 remained at 5.6 %, and the seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate remained at 64.4 %.